Astronomers find most distant glaxy so far

WASHINGTON — Astronomers say they have discovered a hot, star-popping galaxy that is far, far away – farther than any previously detected, from a time when the universe was only about 400 million years old.

By employing a new technique, astronomers exposed a time period they’d thought was impossible to observe with today’s technology. They used the Hubble Space Telescope to find the light wave signature of an extremely bright galaxy 13.4 billion light-years away, according to a study published Thursday by Astrophysical Journal.

Image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a galaxy that is farther than any previously detected, when the universe was only 400 million years old. The Associated Press

It shatters old records for distance and time in a big way, and may remain the farthest that can be seen for years, until a new space telescope is launched, the astronomers said.

With that light signature, astronomers produced a photo of this galaxy that’s fuzzy and deceptive in color. It appears darkish red and indistinct, when in reality it’s so hot it is bright blue, but the light has traveled so long and far that it has shifted to the end of the color spectrum, to dark red.

And that fuzziness masks an incredible rate of star formation that’s 10 times more frenetic than our Milky Way, said study co-author Gabriel Brammer, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

“We’re getting closer and closer to when we think the first stars formed … There’s not a lot of actual time between this galaxy and the Big Bang,” Brammer said.

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